20 French Expressions That Make Absolutely No Sense in English (But We Use Them Every Day)

Tell an English speaker that you "have the cockroach" today, and watch their face. That's when you realise how strange your own language sounds.

We say these without thinking. Translated word for word, they're pure nonsense. Here are my 20 favourites, with what they really mean.

French	Word for word	What it really means
Tomber dans les pommes	To fall into the apples	To faint
Poser un lapin	To put down a rabbit	To stand someone up
Avoir le cafard	To have the cockroach	To feel down
Donner sa langue au chat	To give your tongue to the cat	To give up guessing
Mettre son grain de sel	To put in your grain of salt	To add your two cents
Être haut comme trois pommes	To be as tall as three apples	To be tiny (usually a child)
Faire la grasse matinée	To make the fat morning	To sleep in
Raconter des salades	To tell salads	To tell tall tales
Avoir le cœur sur la main	To have your heart on your hand	To be very generous
Appeler un chat un chat	To call a cat a cat	To call a spade a spade
Avoir d'autres chats à fouetter	To have other cats to whip	To have bigger fish to fry
Passer du coq à l'âne	To go from the rooster to the donkey	To jump from one topic to another
Prendre la mouche	To catch the fly	To take offence quickly
Chercher midi à quatorze heures	To look for noon at 2 p.m.	To overcomplicate things
Faire un tabac	To make a tobacco	To be a huge hit
Pédaler dans la semoule	To pedal in semolina	To get nowhere
Se mettre sur son trente-et-un	To put yourself on your 31	To dress up
Couper la poire en deux	To cut the pear in half	To split the difference
Faire la pluie et le beau temps	To make rain and sunshine	To call the shots
Avoir un poil dans la main	To have a hair in your hand	To be lazy

My three favourites

Poser un lapin. Every Parisian has been stood up at least once. Now you can complain about it properly: « Il m'a posé un lapin ! »

Chercher midi à quatorze heures. I say this to my students all the time when they build a ten-word sentence to say something simple. Keep it simple. French people do.

Pédaler dans la semoule. That's how most learners feel around month three. Totally normal, and it passes.

How to actually remember them

Don't learn all twenty. Pick two this week and use them on purpose, with a French friend or with me. The first time you say « je donne ma langue au chat » and someone laughs, it's yours forever.

Which one is your favourite? Tell me in the comments.

Bisous, Caro